Page 4 of Bleed the Shadows
I’d agreed to it all.
Worst of all, I’d consented to everything that had happened after the Hunt. I’d given my body to Poe and Remy — to Bram even, on that last fateful night in the kitchen. And even though I didn’t want to admit it, I’d started giving them something else too, something a lot more dangerous.
Don’t be a drama queen, M. Jesus.
You can fuck right off, June. You’re the one who got me into this mess.
It wasn’t entirely true. Sure, the whole reason I’d joined the Hunt was to win the prize: an assassination of my choice, that choice being Ethan Todd, the probably tiny-peen manosphere douchebag who’d radicalized Chris, June’s boyfriend.
But Chris was already in jail for killing June. It was enough for my parents, for my brother Simon and my sister Olivia.
I was the problem, the only one of us who couldn’t let go of the fact that there was someone else out there responsible for the fact that my sister was gone forever.
Whatever helps you sleep at night, M.
I ignored my sister’s voice in my head. Now wasn’t the time to debate who was at fault for the fact that I was in the tunnels under Blackwell Falls — again — preparing to risk ninety more days of freedom.
Bram had already given his speech — the part about not being able to leave once the Hunt started, the first aid station, the consequences of being caught. Now he moved down the line of girls, handing the clipboard to them one at a time, waiting while their gazes skimmed the words on the waiver.
So far all but one of the girls — a blonde with a pixie cut — had signed. She’d turned five shades paler when she’d read the waiver, then stammered her desire to leave. I’d half expected Bram to refuse her request, but he’d just nodded at the Barbarian who was obviously in charge of security, and the giant tattooed biker had unbolted the door without a word.
The blonde had darted for the stairs like a mouse with a tiger on its tail, and a few seconds later, the door had been bolted again, Bram continuing on to the next girl like the blonde had never been there at all.
I took some solace in the fact that we really did have to consent to the Hunt. It was easy to forget that it was my choice to be here.
But it was cold comfort. My heart was as frigid and desolate as an arctic tundra.
I felt nothing. Not even fear. Only the need for revenge.
Liar.
I didn’t know if the voice inside my head was my own or June’s, but I stuffed it down as Bram came to a stop in front of the girl to my right. He was so close I could smell him — leather and sweat — and I had a flash of memory: Bram between my thighs in the kitchen at the loft as he drove into me hard and fast.
Wet heat rushed between my thighs and swallowed the emotion that rose in my throat. Not just the pain and humiliation I’d felt that night but a longing I wanted to deny.
I felt the Butchers’ collar around my neck like a brand, felt their ownership of me in ways that went way beyond the collar.
The girl next to me — a brunette with long wavy hair who wore jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt with running shoes — handed him the clipboard, and I held my breath as he turned to continue down the line.
He stopped in front of me and I felt the vacuum of his energy, that strange darkness that was like the eye of a hurricane, or what I imagined the eye of a hurricane would be like.
Quiet, still, and dangerous because of what it said about the storm raging all around it.
Except this time there was new danger in the void: a call I felt in my bones to step into it, like the temptation to jump while standing at the edge of a cliff, not because you wanted to die but because you wanted to know what it felt like to do something you couldn’t take back.
I raised my head slowly, my gaze traveling from his boots to the ripped jeans that barely managed to contain his muscular thighs, past the bulge between his legs that set my heart racing with the memory of how he’d stretched me until I’d burned.
I swallowed my desire as I took in his corded abs and inked chest, the images so layered and dark I could only make out pieces: a skull, a mouth yawning with a scream, broken glass.
I didn’t flinch from his face even though it was as fierce as ever, the long scar running from under his left eye almost all the way to his jaw, his slightly crooked nose, doubtless the product of multiple broken noses.
Even his eyes — those black pools of nothingness — couldn’t repel me now.
His jaw twitched as he handed me the clipboard.
I didn’t even read it before I signed my name and handed it back.
He held it out, his gaze still locked on my face, and the Barbarian took it from his hand.
